


rise up and head on home

by blackkat



Series: Jon Antilles prompts [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Meeting, Friendship, Gen, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Canon, implied - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24587563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: “Too slow, kid,” a voice calls, half a second before a pebble bounces off the top of Jon's head.
Relationships: Knol Ven'nari & Jon Antilles
Series: Jon Antilles prompts [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941646
Comments: 32
Kudos: 551





	rise up and head on home

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Knol and Jon’s first meeting? Like, maybe Jon was about to take out a group of slavers but Knol got there first.
> 
> Title from Lincoln Durham's Ballad of the Prodigal Son.

“Too slow, kid,” a voice calls, half a second before a pebble bounces off the top of Jon's head.

Quick, instinctive, Jon flinches, then ducks back, retreating six long steps from the half-hidden entrance in the mountainside. The towering rocks above him cast back strange echoes, make it hard to pinpoint exactly where the voice came from, but Jon scans the face of the mountain, trying to feel—

Another pebble bounces to a stop at his boots, and there's a snort. “Up here.”

This time, the voice is easier to follow. There's a presence in the Force, too, something hot like the sun, and Jon raises his head, looking up to a narrow window cut into the rock. There's a Bothan woman in Jedi robes seated in it, bouncing another stone in her hand, and when she sees Jon looking at her, she tips her head, then wiggles fingers tipped with short claws at him.

“Here to catch the sights?” she asks, leaning forward, and her grin is something unnerving, something Jon isn't used to. He takes another step back automatically.

There's a pause, then a rustle. The Bothan swings her legs over the edge of the window, then leaps down in a flare of cloth. Jon twitches back from the sudden movement, ducks a little—

“Hey,” the Bothan says, not quite gently, but—easier. Without the edge of faintly derisive amusement Jon could feel from her a moment before. She leans towards him, keeping her feet planted, and she’s short, shorter than Jon even if he’s still growing. “Do you speak?”

Jon freezes, caught. He’s being rude, and she’s probably a Master, probably getting annoyed. He grasps for words, but he’s been wandering this planet for months now without seeing other sentients, hasn’t _had_ to speak. The words are hard to find.

His Master would—

“Easy, kid,” the Bothan says, fur rippling. She takes a step back, and with that little bit of extra space it’s like Jon can breathe again. He ducks his head, bowing quickly to her, and still can't find the words, but it’s slightly less terrifying now.

With a rustle of cloth, the Bothan bows back. “I'm Master Knol Ven’nari,” she says, and grins at him. The feel of her in the Force isn't amusement, but—concern, and Jon doesn’t like the disparity. It doesn’t _mesh_ , and it’s jarring, and his Master—

“Are you a padawan?” Knol asks, and she folds her gloved hands into the sleeves of her robe, posture easing back. Jon lets out a slow breath, letting himself relax a little more, and when he takes another step back, Knol doesn’t follow. “Where’s your Master?” she asks, tilting her head. “You're a long way from the Core out here, aren’t you?”

It takes an effort, takes a too-long moment, but Jon dredges up the little bits of language he can reach and opens his mouth. “Knight,” he says, and it sounds ugly, rasps hard and cracks in the middle. He flinches, stepping back again.

“A Knight, huh.” Knol studies him for a long moment, and after a second her fur ripples. Bothan, Jon thinks, and has to close his eyes. That’s their equivalent of a smile, sometimes. Real smiles are…intimidation.

He wants to turn and leave, make himself invisible and vanish into the scrublands, but the Force led him here and it’s not wavering. This is where he’s supposed to be.

“Working the Outer Rim?” Knol asks, and jerks her chin at the doorway. “I assume you're here about the slavers.”

Relieved to be faced with a simple mission question, Jon nods.

Knol grins, baring her teeth. “Well, I hope you don’t mind that I hit them first. I needed to work off some steam. But if you can help me with freeing their prisoners, I’d appreciate it.”

Clear direction is good, and Jon nods quickly. When she turns, he follows her a few paces behind, and though she gives him a glance she doesn’t seem to mind.

“Pretty place out here, isn't it?” she says over her shoulder, and instead of waiting for an answer, immediately offers, “I know Bothans are supposed to like green places, but I've always been fond of red. All this red grass makes me think of Shili. One of my favorite planets, I’ll admit. You ever been there, kid?”

Silently, Jon shakes his head.

Knol chuckles. “You should go. Very pretty, good hunting, lots of nice people. There was this one pretty Togruta lady, and I swear, if I wasn’t a Jedi I’d have settled down with her in a heartbeat. Of course, I’d probably have ended up with a permanent crick in my neck, given that she was at least half a meter taller than me.” She eyes Jon, then huffs, fur rippling in what’s definitely amusement. “You're not going to be all that far shy of the same, huh, kid? You're what, seventeen? Still growing, for Humans, right?”

“Sixteen,” Jon says, and Knol pauses, eyes darkening faintly. Jon twitches back, not sure what he said wrong, if she didn’t actually want an answer—

“Precocious little bastard, aren’t you,” Knol says cheerfully, and the warmth of her humor returning hits Jon like a blow. His breath shakes in his chest as he exhales, and he curls his hands into fists beneath the sleeves of his robe, relieved and unnerved in equal measure.

“It’s a good thing,” Knol tells him, and pauses in a doorway that opens out onto a courtyard. There are several bodies on the ground, but she ignores them, and hums. “I haven’t figured out how to get down into their holding cells yet—there must be some kind of hidden entrance—”

She’s not looking at him, not paying attention. Carefully, tentatively, Jon reaches out, and taps two fingers against her shoulder before quickly withdrawing his hand. He braces himself—

But Knol just turns, head cocked. “You know something?” she asks, expectant rather than disbelieving, and Jon points towards a hallway that runs along the face of the mountain.

“There?” Knol asks, surprised. “Huh. I’ve been looking for a way deeper into the rock. Good instincts, kid. Let’s check it out.”

Jon lets out a silent breath of relief, following her as she heads that way. She’s muttering about idiots with misleading layouts to their secret bases, and Jon chews on his lip for a moment, then opens his mouth.

“You talk a lot,” he manages, rough and croaky.

It makes Knol laugh, though, bright humor and easy acceptance. “Nico tells me the same thing,” she says, unbothered. “Of course, I mostly do it to annoy him. You don’t think I'm annoying, though, do you, kid?”

Silently, Jon shakes his head. The sound of someone else talking is nice, after so long without.

Gently, lightly, Knol nudges him with a shoulder, and it’s obvious enough that she’s about to do it that Jon doesn’t even flinch. “Good to hear. Hey, you’re not so bad, little Knight. A little quiet, but no one’s perfect.”

Jon ducks his head, not sure if the curl of emotion in the pit of his stomach is embarrassment or humor. It’s been…a long time, since he needed to know.

“Jon,” he manages, and Knol tosses her mane and grins at him. Reaches out, slow and obvious, and puts a hand on Jon's hood, ruffling it like someone might a child’s hair.

“Jon,” she agrees. “Look at that, introductions and everything. Now we’re friends, and you’re not allowed to take that back.”

She’s nothing at all like his Master. And somehow, Jon thinks, he’s fairly certain he won't _want_ to take it back.

He doesn’t say that, though. Just follows her deeper into the mountain, the heat of her presence in the Force like a bonfire drawing him onward.


End file.
